I think Elan has pointed to a value that is deeply embedded in Western
culture, and particularly in the US, and is expressed pathologically at
many levels:
1. shallow personal relationships
2. a Calvinist spiritual heritage
3. a political economy whose primary rule is maximize self interest
regardless of social cost
4. an intellectual culture devoted to production of piecemeal knowledge,
leading to:
5. a compartmentalized view of the world and a strong inclination toward
single-issue strategies of change that cannot succeed as expected in a
systemic, interconnected world.
Maybe, as change agents, we need to focus more explicitly on how often
our extreme individualism has failed us in our oft-proclaimed goal of
building a good society, and promote collectivist values by pointing to
their successes in the historical record, where they have succeeded at
times even in our own hostile cultural environment.
Karl North
Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
www.geocities.com/northsheep/
"Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard
"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying
On Mon, 3 Nov 2008 09:54:01 -0400 Elan Shapiro
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> We cannot bear connection. That is our malady. We
> must break away and be isolate. We call that
> being free, being individual. Beyond a certain
> point, which we have reached, it is suicide What
> man most passionately wants is his living
> wholeness, and his living unison, not his own
> isolate salvation of his "soul." I am part of the
> sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of
> the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is
> part of the sea There is nothing of me that is
> alone and absolute, except my mind, and we shall
> find that the mind has no existence by itself. It
> is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of
> the waters.
>
> D.H. Lawrence
>
> --
> Elan Shapiro
> Sustainable Tompkins Community Partnership Coordinator
> Sustainable Living Associates, Principal
> Frog's Way B&B
> 211 Rachel Carson Way
> Ithaca, NY 14850
> 607-275-0249 607-592-8402 Cell
>
> "We must be the change we want to see in the world"
> Mohandas Gandhi
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